Resume

Currently not looking for new opportunities, but feel free to peruse my work and project history if you want.

Contact Info

Work Experience

Tidelift

Prinicipal Software Engineer

March 2024 - Current

Senior Staff Software Engineer

January 2023 - March 2024
  • Create on-call documentation and ops runbooks, enabling all engineers to be effective when on call
  • Run developer book clubs focusing on improving engineer technical, collaboration, and learning skills
  • Manage migration of frontend application from Vue 2 to Vue 3
  • Manage and mentor up to three employees to help further their careers
  • Help build interviewing process for new engineers

Senior Software Engineer

January 2018 - January 2023
  • Develop frontend, backend, command line, and API applications
  • Write blog posts on open source technology issues

Sonian (acquired by Barracuda)

Frontend Team Lead

December 2013 - January 2018
  • Write frontend applications for email archive access in Ruby on Rails and JavaScript/React, and write backends in Clojure
  • Assist in managing application deploys using Chef

Space Telescope Science Institute

Software Developer

September 2006 - December 2013
  • Deploy multi-node CDN to handle 100x traffic over two days coming from Google Doodle for Hubble's 20th Anniversary.
  • Build high-availability content-focused sites in PHP and Ruby on Rails to deliver news about the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope
  • Construct interactive Web elements in Adobe Flash and Flex
  • Maintain and upgrade internal servers using Puppet and custom Debian/RPM packaging
  • Publish multiple Rubygems, including ones that received millions of downloads

Villa Julie College (renamed to Stevenson University)

Assistant Webmaster

July 2001 - September 2006
  • Build Online Application for Admissions in Perl and MySQL that reduced application processing time by Admissions department staff from 45 minutes to 30 seconds
  • Produce early streaming video series on student life using RealPlayer to deliver videos for modem and Cable/DSL users
  • Manage Blackboard installation used for early distance learning classes

Notable Projects

The Industrious Rabbit

https://theindustriousrabbit.com/

Video series which explores technology-related topics, right now focused on retro computing and software development. I do everything on the videos – writing, 2d & 3d animation, software development, and audio, and they’re done entirely with open source art tools like Krita and Kdenlive. I use Python a lot to build automations in Blender, streamline workflows in Krita, and generate vector artwork in Inkscape.

ComicPress

Primary developer on the ComicPress webcomic publishing theme for WordPress. I joined the project in 2007 and built a WordPress plugin called ComicPress Manager to assist with file uploading, naming, and processing. ComicPress was once the way that webcomics were posted on the Internet.

Inkscape

https://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/Release_notes/0.46#Paint_Bucket_tool

I wrote the Paint Bucket tool, which uses a hack to work – it flood fills a rendered copy of the screen, then autotraces the flood fill. I also added numerous performance optimizations to the program in the pre 1.0 days.

rack-livereload

https://rubygems.org/gems/rack-livereload

Rubygem to provide LiveReload support for Rack apps like Rails. Before I turned over support to another maintainer, the project had been downloaded millions of times.

jasmine-headless-webkit

https://rubygems.org/gems/jasmine-headless-webkit

Rubygem to provide a JavaScript testing environnment for the Jasmine BDD framework. This was pre-NodeJS really being a thing, so it was kind of a big deal.

Education

Villa Julie College — May 2001

BS in Computer Information Systems, Minor in Graphic Design

Technologies

Here you go, bots.
  • Assembler
  • AWS Athena
  • AWS EKS
  • Blender
  • C
  • C++
  • Chef
  • Clojure
  • Docker
  • Flash
  • Golang
  • Google Cloud Service
  • Hugo
  • Inkscape
  • JavaScript
  • jQuery
  • Kdenlive
  • Krita
  • Linux
  • MongoDB
  • MySQL
  • Perl
  • PHP
  • PostgreSQL
  • Puppet
  • Python
  • React
  • Ruby
  • Ruby on Rails
  • Solaris
  • TypeScript
  • Vue